The Insane and the Auction House

Like most players working on the Insane in the Membrane Feat of Strength I’m referring back to Saate and Fannin‘s excellent guides time and time again. But I’m not following their guides strictly.

Some of the advice just doesn’t really work for me as a Priest, and some of it definitely doesn’t work for me living on Barthilas. I can’t solo instances as easily like feral kitties or plate wearers. I have Enchanting as a profession to fall back on (which seems to be unusual). I have awful luck.

I do have gold. But even I wasn’t prepared for exactly how much gold I would have to throw at the Auction House to progress.

My perception of the Insane in the Membrane – before I started it – was that it was all about patience and mindless grinding. It’s something that would take a huge amount of time to complete. And you’d need to be persistent to slowly progress through the reputations.

Perhaps what I should have done was read the two “bibles” linked above several times over and spent the first six months of the grind buying low-supply items off the Auction House.

You can’t farm for a lot of this stuff. You also can’t buy it all up on a whim – there’s simply not enough on Auction House to do so. Instead you have to buy up steadily over a long amount of time, careful not to unduly raise prices too high by inflating demand.

Unfortunately you’re at the mercy of the sellers on your server.

Note: I play a Human so most, if not all of the requirements listed here are from my own notes that factor in Diplomacy.

The Shopping List

For Shen’dralar reputation. You’re going to need 82 Diamonds – one for each Libram turn in (below). Unfortunately you cannot farm for Pristine Black Diamonds. They drop from high level classic mobs – elites mostly. Bosses in Scholomance, Stratholme and Dire Maul don’t seem to have a higher drop rate than the mobs in those instances. It’s all the same.

There is absolutely no use for Pristine Black Diamonds except to raise Shen’dralar reputation. This means that your average player might just vendor them. Gold hungry players will buy the Diamonds and sell them at a premium on the Auction House just to make a bit of profit out of your misery – they know that you have no choice but to pay.

I’ve had one guildy tell me that in Classic, when Blizzard raised the drop rate, they would sell for a couple gold. Most Insane guides price them at about 20-40g.

On Barthilas there are only a few available at any given time. They are listed for 450g-500g.

For Shen’dralar reputation. It’s not essential to buy all the Librams (you’ll need 82 all up) because if you intend to run Dire Maul: North to raise Steemwheedle Cartel – the recommended method – rep you’ll probably get lucky and pick up some Librams as you go.

I would recommend buying the Librams on the AH only if they are listed cheaply. Guides price them at 100g-200g. On Barthilas I can bid and win one every now and then for 50g. Perhaps more Librams are available for sale now that the Dungeon Finder regularly sends players into Dire Maul.

I’m trying to keep my Libram tally and Diamond tally pretty close.

Darkmoon Faire Decision Time!

Before you can finish the shopping list you’re going to need to make a decision. On one hand you can choose to generate many Greater Darkmoon Cards which will consume huge amounts of Felweed and Primal Life in order to create the level 70 Darkmoon Decks. Or you can generate many Darkmoon Card of the North which will consume huge amounts of Snowfall Ink and Eternal Life to create level 80 Darkmoon Decks.

I recommend choosing one path or another. You chances of forming full decks are halved if you split your resources.

Have a look at how many Primal Life and Eternal Life is available on your Auction House. Which is cheaper?

Primal Lifes are scarce in the lead up to Cataclysm. And they’re not cheap on Barthilas. In fact they’re priced similarly to Eternal Lifes (15-19g). I decided to create level 80 Darkmoon Decks.

For Darkmoon Faire reputation. Each card consumes 3 Eternal Life (or 3 Primal Life if you create the level 70 cards). You need 97 Darkmoon Decks to reach exalted as a Human. If you were extremely lucky and ended up with just the right cards necessary to form Decks (Ace through Eight) you’ll need to create 776 cards.

For Darkmoon Faire reputation. Each level 80 card consumes 3 6 Snowfall Ink. Snowfall Ink is rarely found from milling Northrend herbs so, if you don’t have any, you’re going to need to mill huge quantities of Adder’s Tongue or Icethorn. Ask around and you might find many scribes with excess Snowfall Ink, after all, there’s not much use for Snowfall Ink these days.

You’ll need 2328 4656 Snowfall Ink.

If you’ve decided to create level 70 cards you need to mill Outland herbs for a chance to mill Ebon Pigment which you can turn into Darkflame Ink. You’ll need 2328 Ebon Pigment. The cheapest Outland herb available in high quantities on Barthilas is Felweed. I can pick up stacks for about 10g. Dreaming Glory drops down to this price occasionally too. Buy a lot. You can expect about 1 or 2 Ebon Pigments per stack of 20 Felweed.

For Darkmoon Faire reputation. I suggest waiting until you figure out which cards you’re creating way too many of – and don’t buy them. Buy any card that you don’t have many of (compared to others in the deck) when they’re cheap. I estimate the cost of creating a card at about 50g so don’t be afraid to bid on cards you need going cheap.

A full deck, created by yourself, is worth about 400g in pure materials. If you see any completed level 60, 70 or 80 epic decks listed around the 400g-450g I suggest you buy it immediately.

Don’t bother looking for cheap Nobles cards. These are still in demand and sell for a lot.

For Darkmoon Faire reputation. If a level 60, 70 or 80 deck costs approximately 400g and is worth 350 reputation that works out to be 1g 14s per reputation point earned.

These low level decks – Rogues, Mages, Demons or Swords Deck – will grant you 25 reputation when you hand them in. So a low level deck is well worth it if you can buy it for 1g 14s or less per reputation point. At 28g 50s or less, these are a bargain and just as worthy as the high level deck. Don’t be afraid to bid on these when they’re listed cheaply.

21 Responses to “The Insane and the Auction House”

Too bad you can’t send mail cross server, otherwise I’d give you the 15 or so Pristines I got from repeated forays into Scholo and Strat for the Argent Dawn rep and for Loremaster. (I’m now positively sick of Stratholme.) I needed one for the Paladin Charger quest chain –I wanted the Blood Knight tabard– but all the others were moldering away in my bank vault.
.-= Redbeard’s last blog: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in PuGs =-.

Don’t tempt me! So far I’ve picked up 4 Pristines from Dire Maul. Hopefully my luck will get better in Stratholm or Scholomance later on. It’s a shame because I did the Argent Dawn grind about a year ago… and don’t remember picking up any Diamonds.

Funny thing is I’m just about to start grinding through there myself –the quests count toward Seeker– so I’ll make sure to store any of them I have…. Just in case, you know.
.-= Redbeard’s last blog: Down in the Deeps =-.

The diamonds that drop in BRD are the ‘Uncommon’ Black Diamonds, not the ‘Rare’ Pristine ones, FYI.

And yea, I’m working on this FoS currently as well. I have definitely been patient, buying things as I see them cheap, relatively. I leveled up a scribe for it of course, it’s a must imo.
Also, I’m lucky to have already had 2 accounts so I have the advantage of easy access to both markets, helps quite a bit on my server.

Bid? Don’t bid! BUY BUY BUY! The items from the low level decks, especially the leather, sell for a decent amount. You can make a profit from those decks, in addition to the rep. The higher decks require a bit more care, but they can still be profitable. Watch for cheap cards, especially ones which will complete a deck.

This might be a good time to level a scribe, spamming decks as you go along. If you’re interested in some combat to break up the monotony, the elite trees in Sethekk up in the mountains always drop motes of life and some herbs.

Trinkets definitely sell. I guess I actually don’t know much of your realm (also, are you Oceanic? I kind of gleaned you were from someone else’ blog). If I can, I’d say hold on to them for a few weeks though.

During Darkmoon Faire and the first week after, a lot of people unload. But if you wait till weeks 2-3 and the run-up to the Faire, there are shorter/non-existent supplies and it’s the best time to sell.

- if you have an alchemist that can transmute eternals, that may make them a tad cheaper for you than the primals. Eternal earths go for 1-5 gold on my server, and if you have the ability to transmute, that can save a BOATlOAD of gold. Of course you can only transmute 1 per day, and it’s not a direct transmute either, (earth -> shadow -> life) so that means 2 days to make each life. Still, I think it’s an option.

and/or

- Frozen orbs are a semi-cheap currency to get eternals as well. Just
transmute” one orb into one eternal life at the vendor in Dal.

4 spawn every 7 minutes and 30 seconds. They have somewhere around 20-30k hp. They 100% drop between 2-5 motes of life. This means per every ~8 minutes you should be making 1-2 eternal life. On top of that, each herbalism of the corpse always drops 2 sets of between 3-5 herbs or so. This should net lots of herbs, because the Ancient Lichen and Mana Thistle have 2x the drop rate of the uncommon ink needed. (Per 20 Felweed you should gain on average 1 Darkflame Ink, per 20 Ancient Lichen you should gain 2).

So that’s why those PBD’s I had laying around from farming the strat and ZG mounts sold for 500g (I just blindly list stuff with auctionator at whatever it tells me to)… After reading this I feel bad, that’s like 50k just from this one item… I vow to give all future PBD’s I find for free along with backrubs and a shoulder to cry on.

Must be lucky… PBDs on Dragonblight are now consistently selling for 500g. Luckily for me, my guild has a constant influx of transfers. I’ve been offering transfers gold for all PBDs they bring me from their servers. This is pretty win/win on both sides since they have a gold cap and I buy at a flat price of 200g from them, which is usually profitable for the transfers.

As far as decks go, I think it’s really important to take both the incoming gold cost and outgoing gold gain into perspective too. For example, rough numbers, but here on Dragonblight I can absolutely sell a Darkmoon Card: Death for 700-800g. Which means if I buy the deck for 600g I am actually making 200g profit. On the otherhand, Darkmoon Card: Berserker sells for a paltry 100g.

Thanks for the spreadsheet. On Barthilas (as you can see from the screencapture) the less desirable Prisms, Chaos and Undeath decks sell about the 700g mark. The trinkets produced by these decks sell at half that price: 300g.

So, yes, perhaps some of the cost can be regained. But it’s definitely not profitable on Barthilas. And yes, Barthilas is an Oceanic PVP server.